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activism, activists

Sunday 29th of March 2026

Activism The greatest mistake of the [civil rights] Movement has been trying to organize a sleeping people around specific goals. You have to wake the people up first [to their humanity, worth and heritage], then you'll get action. Malcolm X, quoted in “Malcolm X: The Complexity of a Man in the Jungle,” Village Voice, February 25, 1965 © 2021 Kwiple.com
Activism If it takes a bloodbath, let's get it over with.  Ronald Reagan, on ending student protests at University of California, Berkeley © 2023 Kwiple.com
Activism In activist circles, moving from outsider to insider is often viewed as a betrayal. But being on the inside isn't the same thing as selling out. It means your interests are represented. Joshua Green, in Rebels © 2024 Kwiple.com
Activism The loudest duck gets shot. Chinese proverb © 2019 Kwiple.com
Activism Ma'am, I want to do those things, but you must make me. Franklin Delano Roosevelt, to a woman who said he must commit to a long list of objectives before she would vote for him © 2020 Kwiple.com
Activism The nail that sticks out gets hammered down. Japanese proverb © 2019 Kwiple.com
Activism Protest galvanizes public sentiment, and when public sentiment is galvanized to a certain extent, then that turns into public pressure, and then when public pressure is applied to a certain extent, then we get policy change. That is how protest works.  Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez © 2024 Kwiple.com
Activism The squeaky wheel gets the grease. American proverb © 2019 Kwiple.com
Activism Thirty years ago, anti-Vietnam War protesters presented themselves to those in Washington as authentic individuals bent on challenging a state gone off the rails. Today, their place has been taken by Donald Trump. Fred Turner, 2019 © 2019 Kwiple.com
COVID-19 coronavirus One study found lower rates of infection amoing marchers than in their surrounding communities. Epidemiologists concluded that mask wearing and being outdoors protected the protesters. Moreover, demonstrators were on the move. [Michael] Osterholm [director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota] said that people in stationary crowds are more likely to become infected. In other words, joining a protest march is inherently less dangerous than attending a political rally. Lawrence Wright, New Yorker, Jan. 4 & 11, 2021 © 2021 Kwiple.com
Diets I'm not eating Oreos any more. Neither is Chris. [pointing to Chris Christie] You're not eating Oreos any more. No more Oreos for either of us. Donald Trump, at a May 19, 2016, New Jersey rally, vowing to never eat Oreos again to protest the announcement by Nabisco, Oreo's parent, that it would move bakery jobs from Chicago to Mexico © 2018 Kwiple.com
Environmentalism Under a 1970 environmental policy act, projects take an average of 4.5 years to complete their impact assessments.  That is before litigation and other overruns. The law’s key flaw is that it emphasises the views of local communities over the benefits to millions who live elsewhere. Time and again, experience shows that “community participation” is captured by wealthy retirees and lawyers with time on their hands. The law was written before global warming became the issue. Edward Luce, Financial Times, December 16, 2022 © 2022 Kwiple.com
Gun control activists say 21st century weapons 18th century laws Placard, Geneva, Switzerland, March For Our Lives rally, March 24, 2018 © 2018 Kwiple.com
Gun control activists say Betsy DeVos is the only thing that should be fired inside a school Placard, March For Our Lives rally, March 24, 2018 © 2018 Kwiple.com
Gun control activists say Guns will be the death of us Placard, Fort Worth, Texas, March For Our Lives rally, March 24, 2018 © 2018 Kwiple.com
Gun control activists say I can't even bring peanut butter to school Placard, New York City, March For Our Lives rally, March 24, 2018 © 2018 Kwiple.com
Gun control activists say I want to live in a world where guns are harder to get than Hamilton tickets!! Placard, New York City, March For Our Lives rally, March 24, 2018 © 2018 Kwiple.com
Gun control activists say If you need a machine gun to hunt you suck at it Placard, March For Our Lives rally, March 24, 2018 © 2018 Kwiple.com
Gun control activists say Mental illnesses  are global Mass shootings are American Placard, London, England, March For Our Lives rally, March 24, 2018 © 2018 Kwiple.com
Gun control activists say My favorite part of the 2nd Amendment is where it says a well regulated militia Gun control now Placard, Paris, France, March For Our Lives rally, March 24, 2018 © 2018 Kwiple.com
Gun control activists say N ow R aising A ctivists Placard, New York City, March For Our Lives rally, March 24, 2018 © 2018 Kwiple.com
Gun control activists say There should be a background check before the NRA is allowed to buy a Senator Placard, New York City, March For Our Lives rally, March 24, 2018 © 2018 Kwiple.com
Gun control activists say Thoughts and prayers for Republicans in November Placard, March For Our Lives rally, March 24, 2018 © 2018 Kwiple.com
Gun control activists say Throw Them Out Nationwide campaign led by Everytown for Gun Safety, a movement to end gun violence and expose candidates who take money from the NRA © 2018 Kwiple.com
Gun control activists say When I said I'd rather die than go to math class? That was hyperbole, assholes  Placard, March For Our Lives rally, March 24, 2018 © 2018 Kwiple.com
Gun control activists say Who in your life would have to die for you to support gun control? Placard, Las Vegas, Nevada, March For Our Lives rally, March 24, 2018 © 2018 Kwiple.com
Inequality [T]hose who find themselves in the worst positions have the most pressures to find legitimacy in the social order. The alternative —believing that the system is unjust, unfair, or even random— is in fact painful and generates more stress. Approving of the system  therefore serves a “palliative function,” even though in practice it discourages seeking beneficial changes that might concretely redress exising inequalities.  Francesco Duina, Broke and Patriotic, summarizing social justification theory  © 2018 Kwiple.com
Oppression Don't agonize. Organize. y Florynce Kennedy © 2015 Kwiple.com
Oppression If you've been hit a lot, you tend to stay sore for a while. Trying to help an oppressed person is like trying to put your arm around somebody with sunburn. y Florynce Kennedy © 2015 Kwiple.com
Oppression Loserism is when oppressed people sit around and think up reasons why they can't do something. Well just do it. Thinking up reasons why you can't is the Establishment's job. y Florynce Kennedy © 2015 Kwiple.com
Partisanship Being a Democrat or a Republican has become not just a party affiliation but an identiy. A 2016 survey conducted by the Pew Foundation found that 49 percent of Republicans and 52 percent of Democrats say the other party makes them “afraid.” Among politically engaged Americans, the numbers are even higher— 70 percent of Democrats and 62 percent of Republicans say they live in fear of the other party. Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, How Democracies Die  © 2018 Kwiple.com
Politics You want results and you get consequences. Poltical truism © 2019 Kwiple.com
Resisters say I am no longer accepting the things I cannot change I'm changing the things I cannot accept Placard, Women's March on Washington, January 21, 2017 © 2017 Kwiple.com
Resisters say If you're not outraged you're not paying attention Placard, Women's March in many places, January 21, 2017 © 2017 Kwiple.com
Resisters say You have the right to remain silent but I don't want it  Placard, Women's March on Washington, January 21, 2017 © 2017 Kwiple.com
Selfie I have a deep-seated fear that the Black struggle will ultimately, at its root, really just be about narrow Black interest. And I don’t think that is in the tradition of what our most celebrated thinkers have told the world. … Should it turn out that we have our first Black woman president, and our first South Asian president, and we continue to export 2,000-pound bombs to perpetrate a genocide [against Palestinians], in defense of a state [Israel] that is practicing apartheid, I won’t be able to just sit here and shake my head and say, “Well, that is unfortunate.” Ta-Nahesi Coats, New York Magazine, Sep 23 – Oct 6, 2024 © 2024 Kwiple.com
Trumpists say  If something like this happened in Arkansas on a bridge there, let’s just say that there would be a lot of very wet criminals that would have been tossed overboard, not by law enforcement, but by the people whose road they are blocking. If they glued their hands to a car or pavement,  it would probably be pretty painful to have their skin ripped off, but I think that’s the way we’d handle it in Arkansas.  And I’d encourage most people, anywhere, that get stuck behind criminals like this that are trying to block traffic like this, to take matters into their own hands. Tom Cotton, on the Right way to handle peaceful protesters © 2024 Kwiple.com
Trumpists say Sorry, I'm late for lunch. Most common response provided by Republican Senators on their way to lunch when asked what they thought about teargassing peaceful protesters in Lafayette Park to clear a path so Trump could stage a photo op awkardly holding, as he said, “a Bible” in front of St. John's Episcopal Church, which didn't invite or want him there  © 2020 Kwiple.com
Trumpists say There’s an insurrection happening now on Capitol Hill. Marjorie Taylor Greene, 2:59 PM – Oct 18, 2023, equating protestors at the Capitol calling for a cease fire in Gaza Strip to the attack by January 6 insurrectionists © 2023 Kwiple.com
Wannabe autocrats Donald Trump and his allies have begun mapping out specific plans for using the federal government to punish critics and opponents should he win a second term, with the former president naming individuals he wants to investigate or prosecute and his associates drafting plans to potentially invoke the Insurrection Act on his first day in office to allow him to deploy the military against civil demonstrations. … Much of the planning for a second term has been unofficially outsourced to a partnership of right-wing think tanks in Washington. Dubbed ”Project 2025,” … Project 2025 comprises 75 groups in a collab- oration organized by the Heritage Foundation. Washinton Post, November 5, 2023 © 2023 Kwiple.com